PILGRIMS AT THE LAND'S END 311 



lyzing burden of life. Away with it ! We have 

 done our best to be happy and we have been happy. 

 We have seen the Land's End." 



Her cheerfulness makes one's eyes moisten that 

 one day at the Land's End, when her life's work was 

 over, when in spite of her years and weak nerves she 

 ventured painfully down and out among those rough 

 crags, assisted by her guide and companion, for one 

 grand ten minutes on the outermost rock the fulfil- 

 ment of a dream of fifty years ! 



She was a very gentle, tender-hearted woman, as 

 sweet and lovable a soul as ever dwelt on earth, but 

 her mind was only an average one, essentially medi- 

 ocre ; in her numerous works she never rose above 

 the commonplace. There are thousands of women 

 all over the country who could produce as many and 

 as good books as hers if they were industrious enough 

 and thought it worth their while to take up novel- 

 writing as a profession. She wrote for the million 

 and is understood by them, and I take it that in her 

 dream and sentiment about the Land's End she 

 represents her public the mass of the educated 

 women in England just as she represents their 

 feeling about love and the domestic virtues and life 

 generally in her John Halifax^ Mistress and Maid^ A 

 Life for a Life and scores of other works. 



But books, however eloquent and heart-searching 

 they may be, cannot produce an effect comparable to 

 that of seeing and hearing to the sight and sound 

 of emotion in men's faces and voices and in their 

 words. The passage I have quoted, and all the other 



